In 1901, the Nobel Foundation offered a little over 150,000 kronor to its winners, which equates to a little over 8 million in 2012 value. The prize money immediately started falling and by 1917 it was less than half its 1901 value.

The 1919 prize of 133,127 kronor (2.2 million in 2012 value), awarded in the shadows of World War I, was only 28 per cent of the value of the 1901 prize.

Peace laureate Woodrow Wilson had a sense of the frugal times he lived in. According to one biography, the former US president recognised for his work in establishing the short-lived League of Nations, put all his prizemoney in the bank as a nest-egg in the days before government pensions.

Another prescient move came from Albert Einstein, who had provided in his 1919 divorce settlement that his prizemoney should go to his wife and sons. Einstein did not win the Nobel until 1921.

It took until the 1991 purse of 6,000,000 kronor for the award to reach parity with its 1901 value. According to reports, 1993 Medicine laureate Richard Roberts used the cash to install a croquet lawn in his yard.

The pot increased steadily each following year and by 2001 the Nobel Foundation was offering 10,000,000 Swedish kronor, the equivalent of 11,763,934 kronor in 2012 money and 144 per cent of the 1901 value.

Physics laureate Wolfgang Ketterle, who split the prize three ways, used the money to "buy a house and for the education of my children", according to TIME. Other reports have him lamenting that since "half goes to taxes" he had little left to splurge with.